Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Marriage optimist

This girl I knew in high school appears to have gotten divorced. I say "appears" because I haven't actually been in touch with her for years, but she just took her Facebook "married to" status down so her relationship status isn't listed at all anymore, and changed her name back to her maiden name. So it seems pretty clear. This is after months of cryptic posts about how she will get through the tough times, and she's so glad her friends are there to support her, and so on. Also someone posted on her wall once about how she would get through this, and the first TEN YEARS (!!) of a marriage are the hardest. I don't know, maybe I'm young and naive, but a 10-year rough patch at the start of a marriage sounds like a pretty freaking long rough patch. I mean, even if you stay married for 50 years, that's a good 20% of your marriage right there. My goodness.

ANYWAY, my initial point with this had nothing to do with her divorce, really. It has to do with the fact that her Facebook profile had a customized URL, and it was her married name. You know, facebook.com/firstname.marriedname. And now she is Firstname Maidenname again, but the URL of her Facebook profile still has her married name. And I remember when Facebook first started offering customized URLs, they gave a strict warning about how you had to choose carefully because once the URL is assigned it can't be changed, but dude, do you think they could make an exception for divorced people? Because how much does it suck to go through a divorce, drop your married name, and still have it staring you and all your friends in the face every time you log onto Facebook? I'm just saying.

Also, this is one of the first divorces I've witnessed via Facebook. AND, another friend has just changed his Facebook status from "married" to "separated." I didn't even know that "separated" was an OPTION for a Facebook relationship status. But apparently it is. I wonder if it's been added recently? Due to popular demand?

I was in college when Facebook was launched, so I grew up with it, so to speak, since at first it was targeted only to college students, and that's what I was at the time. As I've gotten older I've watched my friends' relationship statuses change from joke marriages to their close friends to "it's complicated" to "in a relationship" to "engaged" to "married." And I guess now I'm entering the time in my life when some of those marriages start to fall apart, and so I should reasonably expect to see more and more people listing their relationship status as "separated" or "divorced."

But STILL. It doesn't get any easier to watch, even with people you barely know. My sister went through a divorce, and that is obviously the divorce that has affected me personally the most, and, you know, it wasn't MY divorce so I was mostly there as her support system, and now she's remarried and pregnant (did I mention she is having a girl? By the way? Because she is, and, you know, YAY, and also how convenient for my parents that they get a matched set of boy-girl grandchildren arriving approximately six weeks apart, no?), and everything seems to have worked out quite beautifully for her, so that's great, but it still doesn't mean I'm less traumatized when other people get divorced. Or separated. Even if it's people I haven't spoken to in years. Even if it's people whose spouses I never met. Even if it's people whose lives I didn't think I was the least bit invested in.

I guess I just want EVERY marriage to work. And I blithely assume that they all will. My own marriage is so lovely and I want to assume that every other married couple has an equally lovely relationship of their own. And so I DO assume it, and then suddenly some of them are divorced and that means they didn't have the marriage I wanted them to have, or they did and then something changed, and either way: SAD.

And don't even get me STARTED on blog divorces. Whenever somebody in blogland announces that they're getting divorced, it hits me over the head like a sledgehammer. I'm never expecting it, NEVER, even if the person has been writing for ages about how their marriage is struggling.

Call me naive, but I'm not really looking forward to the continued disillusions about other people's marriages that are sure to keep coming in the next few years. So I think I'll keep on assuming and hoping that everyone I know has a great, happy marriage that will last for the rest of their lives. Even if that means I have to be shocked and upset on occasion when I find out news to the contrary.

I found out last spring that one of my son's friend's parents had gotten divorced...I might have blogged about it then, but they had just seemed like the cutest, happiest couple/family.

As a divorced person myself (over 10 years ago!), I can say firsthand it can be hard...But it can also be kind of easy at the same time. It depends on how bad it got. It was hard when we separated, but by the time the papers were signed, it was only a formality. And now it's such a distant memory, and I know it was for the best. Without that divorce, I would not have my son and my husband.

I feel the same way about blog divorces...not as much about FB ones, as it's been happening quite frequently to my "circle". i guess what is so weird about blog ones, is that maybe people try to portray their lives in the best light possible? i mean, who wants to read a downer blog all the time? but when you hear that announcement, it's crushing and unexpected...even if you don't know them!

My sister JUST left her husband ... and it seemed like a trial thing. Until SHE changed her status to ... nothing ... he kept his though as married. So I didn't panic. Then last week I noticed she went on his page and in his photos section, all the photos of them together she sent a message that said "Please remove this" ... and then this Sunday - his status changed too ... to nothing

and now, for some reason I am floored and sad and upset ... so I 100% know how you feel and it's so strange that FB is where we get all our news these days.

I remember the first time a wedding I'd attended ended in divorce, and I felt a little like shouting--But no! Wait! Your wedding was so nice! You guys seemed so happy! If maybe also a little teasingly sarcastic!--and then there was the strange part, the way the half of the couple we knew less well just sort of blew away, with no way to contact her or ask how she was doing, or ask what went wrong. Although even the half that we did know we couldn't really ask that--it's so hard to understand what goes on in a couple if you're not a part of it.

Lately I have been lingering and lingering over divorce blogs...and I'm finding more and more of them. And then I ask myself, Well? What's going on? Are you...?

And no, no I'm not. But I think it's that there are a lot of things I wish I COULD divorce right now. Like the @#%&$ house. Or our horribly hectic family schedule. Or the stupid middle-of-the-night worries over various traits in my kids.

plus with blog divorces, you get so invested in blog-friends' lives - even more so than in-person-friends' lives, sometimes, since i don't get status updates daily from most of my friends! - so it seems to hit even harder. i hate it everywhere, though... like you, i prefer to believe that everyone's marriages are working out for the best :)

I know of a particular relationship that seemed--from MY perspective--to be very, very bad, and I kept HOPING to hear of the divorce. And I realized how sad and wrong that was, but the relationship seemed so...strained! and unequal! and unhappy! and FORCED!

Many, many years later (MORE than 10!), they seem to have FINALLY hit a groove. And I'm hopeful that it will HOLD, and I'm hoping I was just plain WRONG about it all for all those years.

All marriage busts make me sad, but I'm happy that my OWN marriage--while most certainly NOT perfect--at least seems just as solid as it was when we finally tied the knot.

That being said, yes, hearing of folks' relationship statuses on FB is a bit disconcerting. To the point where I almost didn't put my own up there. I mean, whose business is it how "happy" everyone else's relationships are? Then I was afraid of troll-ish ex-boyfriends trying to come in and make a play (Oh! Troll-ish ex! How did I ever end up dating you?! *shiver*), so I finally put up my "married" for protection (along with all the vigorous blocks/protections on the site!).

I don't think about divorce much - most of our friends are still dating, not even to the married stage. But one of my best friend's parents split-up a few years ago - in high school I spent so much time at their house they truly were like my 2nd family. It rocked me for about two days, and then I was over it. Apparently I'm not very deep about this???

I don't think "the first 10 years are the hardest" means that there's a 10-year rough patch. I think maybe the person meant it takes 10 years to figure out how to be married or that if you make it through the first 10 years there's more of a chance you'll stay together. I think the first 10 years probably are some of the hardest if you have little kids during that time and if you buy a first house and if you are still figuring out your careers, but I've only been married for 5 years, so who knows.

Maybe I'm a bit of a cynic or something, but I am no longer surprised or shocked when a marriage disolves. With the divorce rate at half the marriage rate it seems inevitable that--for whatever reason--most marriages aren't going to last. And I also think that most marriages are not at all what they are portrayed on FB or in blogland. There are some things that are too personal to splash around the Internet, and I think that includes something as intimate and sacred as your relationship with your spouse. It's not fair to share those kind of sordid details while you are still trying to make the relationship work.

I have dozens of close friends who have been divorced, whether they'd been married for two years or twenty, it still happens all the time. I'm no longer shocked, in fact, at this point I almost expect it.

I'm not close with any real life divorced people and I know I'll be sick if/when it happens. But blog divorces - those affect me for DAYS. And I don't even know them. Not even in the blog sense, really!

Yeah I have seen a number of FB divorces of friends in high school and it's just awkward. Thankfully no divorces of good/close friends. But it's just weird.

Recently two people at work have started the process of divorce and that is weird because CP and I are just hitting our one year anniversary- and both of these women have been divorced before that....so maybe they didn't learn from their first failed marriage?

You know, I don't believe there should be a 10-year rough patch. Yes, all relationships are work, but really? When you have the right people in your life? It is pretty easy. At least, that has been my experience.

I wish Facebook would add an option for domestic partners and living together in their list of relationship options. I am not really just in a relationship, and I am not married. Come on, Facebook. Get with the times. 7.5 million US (hetero) couples are living together! And 65,0000 gay couples!

I was 30 before the divorces started rolling in. In fact, I remember bragging that I only knew one person my age who was divorced ... and it was like famous last words ... because next thing I know, I had friends divorcing. Not a lot, but enough to shut my pie hole.

You say you grew up with Facebook ... well, we all have also grown up with divorce. And even if it hasn't hit our own parents directly, we still know people who have suffered through those tough times. Point being, while we'd like to be optimists, the cold, hard reality is we will know people who go through divorce.

I've seen quite a few divorces via Facebook - scarily, they're people my age. It does make me sad, especially when I get the awful vibe of 'I knew that would happen' - sometimes you can just see things leading towards disaster, even before they get there. It's the same with a few Facebook 'friends' of mine who had children with their partners.. only to argue, complain, split up & be left as single parents months after the birth. It's a bit like a trainwreck, you know?

A ten year rough patch is kind of insane, IMO. It's an adjustment getting married, sure, and no marriage is perfect, but ten years?

I'm not at all shocked by divorce. My parents divorced. My "father" went on to divorce 3 or 4 more times, my aunt was married/divorced 6 or 7 times. All but one of my aunts/uncles has been divorced. I myself have been divorced. A lot of my friends have been getting divorced in the last 3-4 years and I'm turning 31 at the end of this year. Marriage isn't what it was even 30 years ago. It's so easy to get divorced and give up. There isn't a stigma to divorce like their used to be. Obviously, no one wants a marriage to end in divorce and in many cases it feels unexpected to those outside the marriage. I do have to agree though that some people take the status change thing a little far on FB. I have a friend who gets in a fight with her husband and suddenly their relationship is "complicated" or non-exsistant. Another who went from nothing to single and is now back to "married to" her husband of almost 20 years. I think the internet just makes it so much easier to be involved in other people's relationships and so it seems to affect us more profoundly.

Congrats to your sister on having a baby girl! I can't believe you just threw that in, and also no one else commented on it. Your kids will grow up together and probably have such a strong bond. And even if your future niece will live half-way across the country, this is so great for you and your sister to have kids at the same time. Imagine, when the kids are older you will send your boy to her house for a few weeks during summer vacation and the other way around. I could just see this with my sister.

All the best, Sarah

Oh, and divorces make me sad, too. So I'm not even gonna comment on it.

I hate hearing about people's divorces, esp. when they are my age and have only been married a few years. I mean I guess the alternative is to be unhappily married, which doesn't sound any better, but still. I'm about your age and I know a few people (or know of a few people) who have been experiencing the whole thing in the eyes of Facebook. So sad.

I watched one friend go through a divorce and it was a good thing. She is now married to the person she should have married in the first place. I'm watching another friend heading that direction and thinking "Whyyyyyy?" She's my friend, but also a family that we do family things with. And I don't hate her husband, but I feel like that's the expectation. I'm not looking forward to this trend continuing.

My sil just got divorced and some days i think it's no big deal (relatively speaking) and other days i think everyone involved is irreparably damaged. I'm in the midst of a rare but huge fight with my husband and this post kind of reminds me to look at the bigger picture.